Incredibly—for it was written, in all probability, in 1916—the deleted scene, as well as two brief and somewhat enigmatic notes about the novel, have survived in the pages of Notebook 37. The chapter and notes for The Mysterious Affair at Styles were written in pencil, with much crossing out and many insertions. This is difficult enough to read, but an added complication lies in the fact that Christie often replaced the deleted words with alternatives, squeezed in, sometimes at an angle, above the original. And although the explanation of the crime is, in essence, the same as the published version, the published text was of limited help in deciphering them. The wording is often different and some names have changed. Having spent the best part of two years transcribing the notebooks, I can say that of all the entries this exercise was the most challenging, but the fact that it is Agatha Christie’s and Hercule Poirot’s first case made the extra effort worthwhile.
This new edition of The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the first to restore Agatha Christie’s original unpublished courtroom ending to her book, so that you, the reader, can judge whether or not John Lane was right in insisting on a rewrite. The deleted version of Chapter 12, ‘The Last Link’, is printed at the back of the book, and can be read as an alternative to the published Chapter 12. Because the original chapter has been reconstructed from the unedited draft in Notebook 37, I have added conventional punctuation, made some minor edits for the sake of consistency, and omitted a few illegible words to ensure it is fully readable. (A more detailed presentation of the chapter, complete with annotations and footnotes, can be found in my book Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making.)
Although Poirot’s dramatic evidence and explanation is essentially the same in both the courtroom and the drawing room versions of the chapter, the unlikelihood of a detective being allowed to give court evidence in the manner of a witness is self-evident. Had John Lane but known it, in demanding the alteration to the denouement of the novel he unwittingly paved the way for a half century of drawing room elucidations stage-managed by Poirot. In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Peril at End House, Three Act Tragedy, Death in the Clouds, The ABC Murders, Dumb Witness, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Five Little Pigs and After the Funeral, among others, Poirot holds forth to the assembled suspects in scenes reminiscent of this first explanation in Mary Cavendish’s Kensington drawing room, where the family have moved for the duration of the trial. Not all of his expositions are in such elegant surroundings, however; an archaeological dig is the background in Murder in Mesopotamia, a snowbound train in Murder on the Orient Express, a dubious guest-house in Mrs McGinty’s Dead, a student hostel in Hickory Dickory Dock. Miss Marple, on the other hand, often confronts the killer—Sleeping Murder, Nemesis, The Mirror Crack’d, 4.50 from Paddington, A Murder is Announced, A Caribbean Mystery—reserving the detailed explanation for later. Doubtless, Poirot’s vanity enjoys the adulation that follows his explanation!
The usual clichéd view of Christie is that all of her novels are set in country houses like Styles Court, and/or country villages. Statistically, this is inaccurate. Less than 30 (i.e. little over a third) of her titles are set in such surroundings, and the figure drops dramatically if you discount those set completely in a country house, as distinct from a village. But as Christie herself said, you have to set a book where people live.
In other ways also The Mysterious Affair at Styles presaged what was to become typical Christie territory—an extended family, a poisoning drama, a twisting plot, and a dramatic and unexpected final revelation. It is not a very extended family in Styles, however; there are only seven suspects, which makes the disclosure of a surprise murderer more difficult and Christie’s achievement in her first novel even more impressive.
In his 1953 survey of detective fiction, Blood in their Ink, Sutherland Scott describes The Mysterious Affair at Styles as ‘one of the finest “firsts” ever written.’ Countless Christie readers over almost a century would enthusiastically agree.
DR JOHN CURRAN
March 2013
The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as ‘The Styles Case’ has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.
I will therefore briefly set down the circumstances which led to my being connected with the affair.
I had been invalided home from the Front; and, after spending some months in a rather depressing Convalescent Home, was given a month’s sick leave. Having no near relations or friends, I was trying to make up my mind what to do, when I ran across John Cavendish. I had seen very little of him for some years. Indeed, I had never known him particularly well. He was a good fifteen years my senior, for one thing, though he hardly looked his forty-five years. As a boy, though, I had often stayed at Styles, his mother’s place in Essex.
We had a good yarn about old times, and it ended in his inviting me down to Styles to spend my leave there.
‘The mater will be delighted to see you again—after all those years,’ he added.
‘Your mother keeps well?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes. I suppose you know that she has married again?’
I am afraid I showed my surprise rather plainly. Mrs Cavendish, who had married John’s father when he was a widower with two sons, had been a handsome woman of middle-age as I remembered her. She certainly could not be a day less than seventy now. I recalled her as an energetic, autocratic personality, somewhat inclined to charitable and social notoriety, with a fondness for opening bazaars and playing the Lady Bountiful. She was a most generous woman, and possessed a considerable fortune of her own.
Their country-place, Styles Court, had been purchased by Mr Cavendish early in their married life. He had been completely under his wife’s ascendancy, so much so that, on dying, he left the place to her for her lifetime, as well as the larger part of his income; an arrangement that was distinctly unfair to his two sons. Their stepmother, however, had always been most generous to them; indeed, they were so young at the time of their father’s remarriage that they always thought of her as their own mother.
Lawrence, the younger, had been a delicate youth. He had qualified as a doctor but early relinquished the profession of medicine, and lived at home while pursuing literary ambitions; though his verses never had any marked success.
John practised for some time as a barrister, but had finally settled down to the more congenial life of a country squire. He had married two years ago, and had taken his wife to live at Styles, though I entertained a shrewd suspicion that he would have preferred his mother to increase his allowance, which would have enabled him to have a home of his own. Mrs Cavendish, however, was a lady who liked to make her own plans, and expected other people to fall in with them, and in this case she certainly had the whip hand, namely: the purse strings.
John noticed my surprise at the news of his mother’s remarriage and smiled rather ruefully.
‘Rotten little bounder